Does anybody know anything about Latin/tutors?

[2kidzandi]

Hello all!

Just wanted to get your very useful advice again This time i'm musing about whether or not to get a tutor in to start teaching ds7 latin. We have gradually moved towards an informal approach to HE. I'm not forcing him to read (although he can), write or do maths in a formal sense. We do do those things but only during everyday activities. He appears to be happier for now, so i've backed off and given him some space....it appears to be working. Although I still worry and fell that we will have to do more formal stuff in the future but i'm waffling.

I've read that learning latin makes science more accessible for children. I was thinking of getting a tutor in for an hour or so a week. This would be the only formal thing we would do, although not sure that DS would object or not. It would be a difficult committment financially, but worth it IF he enjoyed it and got some benefits out of it.

Just wanted to know if anyone drafts in tutors for anything, and what your experiences are, especially if your informally HEing. Does anyone use an agency that they would recommend, or is this whole think inadvisable at this age. I'm a bit unsure about this actually so any advice would be welcome.

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about Home Ed, nor drafting in tutors...

But!

I do know something about Latin...

I wouldn't advise getting Latin tuition solely on the basis that it makes science more accessible. I really believe that, if it is to be enjoyable and worthwhile, it has to be done on its own merits: you have to want to learn a (difficult & unspoken) language for its own sake.

To often Latin is fobbed off as "good intellectual training", "good for helping you learn other languages/science/etc". But I find that this approach usually backfires - by the time you get good enough for all this to be true, you've had to slog through the basic and intermediate stuff, which can take years. It is not a soft option.

Latin is fabulous, though.

Do you live in a uni town? If so, contact your local Classics department: you could probably get a PhD student to come and teach your son for a reasonable sum.

HTH!

Sheesh: too often!

similarly to Penthe - I did Latin up to A Level. Never found it helped at all with sciences. Very useful basis for learning other languages though! Since you already feel a bit unsure about the idea, and your DS doesn't seem to enjoy the formal approach, I would hang fire a bit with hiring a tutor.

may be useful to try and encourage an interest in the Romans first - and see if that interests him in learning some of their language - trips to museums/roman remains, reading about gladiators etc?

I think for medical/biological things latin might be more useful - but not really for maths, chemistry or physics (in my experience - having done latin at school and a science degree/post grad). Many of the words we think if as latin are actually greek origin anyway

Knowing that latin exists and that many of our words - particularly technical words come from that stem might be just as useful as actually studying latin. So how about picking words like say photosynthesis - realise it comes from photo - light and synthesis - making something.

Then think of other photo words - eg photophobic, photogenic, photography.

Or look at lots of words ending in graphy - work out why they mean what they do (geography, biography, lexicography)

This can be a really fun and wide ranging thing to try.

Hi, I think in relative terms, Latin would be a long way down the list of things which I would make a DC do, if you are HEing in a fairly autonomous and informal way. If you want to interest him in science, and make it more accessible, I'd concentrate on the science itself TBH. If he later really wants to know Latin, then he can study it. FWIW I did O-Grade Latin at school, and I don't think it made any difference to me in science at all. The only thing it's useful for is understanding the Latin names of plants and animals, and that's a tiny part of what you do in biology.

I found it helped me more with English and French - the practice in working out what words meant was a useful skill for that.

So - Latin is interesting in itself, but I don't think it will be a particular help to him in other subjects, and I don't think it would be a good use of limited resources.

Thanks! We are already doing science at home, albeit fairly informally. We discovered those science experiments in the box activities and we'll be doing a bit of botany this spring/summer. Since we stated HE the sciencey stuff is the only thing he's started showing interest in (besides wii,dvds,com games) I do feel that learning a language that can be useful in later life is very important and everyone seems to agree that children pick up languages best when they're young due to "spongey brain" syndrome.

I always found the foreigness of latin classifications in science and horticulture a hurdle in school and life generally. I still enjoyed science, but it made it more difficult to remember certain things because there was nothing familiar to reference them to. So that's why I guess I started considering it really. And it does appear to make learning other latin based languages easier to learn....but I am concerned about exposing him to teacheryness again. Don't have money to waste either!

The Minimus books are aimed at 7-10 year olds, are very approachable and lots of fun.
here Textbooks are easy to get, and you may find your son's school will offer a Latin club, many do. You don't need a Latin background to read them, and they actually help teach principles of English language too.

My DD loves the cartoon pictures and the little stories.

I write as a totally biased person, I am a Latin teacher, and of course think that Latin is a fantastic subject!

Both of my girls do Latin; one is 13 and one is 9. My 9 year old started 18 months ago, at just 8. She loves it. But it was something she was keen on for herself, being very into Romans etc.

I wouldn't say it's helped much else yet (though they will relate an English word to a Latin one), but we're not doing it for that purpose. She's following Cambridge Latin Course but working fairly slowly, still on the first book (though some way through). She also has minimus but wasn't quite so keen, surprisingly. She really likes the stories in Cambridge Latin (though they really aren't aimed at her age).

As a home educator, I would probably only engage tutors for things my two were desperate to do and we couldn't do by any other means!

My dd wanted to learn Latin last year (7) so I got the first Minimus book and she liked the background stories (life in Roman Britain, legends). We liked the comics and their humour. However she wanted more meat. So I am considering this book:
Getting Started with Latin: Beginning Latin for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age (Paperback)
by William E. Linney (Author)

• which I see gets very good reviews on amazon.com.

At the moment though I don't have the time to do a bit of Latin with her every day after school, so am playing for time and putting her off at the moment. The author has pronunciation guides accessible for free on his website and you work with the textbook and the website.

I do agree with a couple of the other posters though that if you are trying to go the autonomous route, Latin is a tricky proposition. It is very much grammar based and even with Minimus, you do need to do some structured lessons. My dd is fine with that generally but if your ds is not yet at that stage, I think Latin might be harder to teach than a modern language because there are so many fun-based DVD and CD courses for children to learn say French or Spanish.

When you get a chance,leaf through a Latin textbook for children in a bookstore and see what it entails.

I don't want to damper your ardour though. I am sure you could both enjoy it. How about you fire up his interest in the ancient world, in particular Rome first? Gladiator schools, Julius Caesar, Roman gods, Asterix, how the Roman army fought, Romulus and Remus. That kind of thing might appeal to him. THen when he is hooked, introduce the odd Latin word/phrase till he wants to learn more about it.

latin is fabulous. it is the only subject at scchool ds is excelling at.

Thanks for all the messages. Sounds like I should put it on the back burner for now then.....sigh.....i'm a crazy over-enthusiastic momma!

No, I don't think you have to put it on the back burner, if it is something you really want ds to learn. You could try advertising for a tutor who is willing to work with the Minimus book for example which is quite playful in its approach and try it for a month. That's not a huge investment (4 lessons and the book, perhaps also the cassette if you want to check the pronunciation yourself). Ifthis is the only formal style schooling he has and he is not overwhelmed with this type of thing all day, he may actually love it since its different.

If you can find the Minimus website (via the book page), you will see they offer things like a day at the museum where the dc all dress up in togas and weekends away etc which might make it all come alive and be a great boost at some stage.

It all comes down to the tutor really. I think with Minimus, you could initially teach him yourself, even with no prior knowledge of Latin.

You might find that your ds responds better to formal style schooling/tutoring when it someone other than you doing it IYSWIM. Shame Minimus doesn't have a DVD out

Thanks for your advice zzzen. Giving it a try for a few weeks is a good suggestion and I think i'll give the minimus/getting started with latin a taster and see how it goes. I'll also get out books on the Romans and try the horrible histories. We have loads of Asterix. If he doesn't take to it, I will leave it until another time! Now why couldn't I come to such a practical solution on my own.....?

There is a Minimus CD though, with all the stories read by actors.

Whereabouts are you? If you contact the Minimus website they have a list of people who are willing to teach Latin clubs. I now realise you are a homeschooler, but one of these people may do home tuition too. There's no reason to put it on the back burner, like ZZZen suggests check out museums for events, English Heritage has a list of events all over the country. The British Museum is always worth a visit for all its Classical stuff.

ok I've dug it out now and see I have been rambling about a cassette all the day when in fact as jet says, it is a CD.

So Minimus is a little mouse.There are 12 chapters in the book.

1. meet the family
2. food, glorious food
3. work, work , work
4. the best days of your life
5. Romans and Britons
6. off to town etc etc

The intro is a little map of Britain with Hadrian's wall marked on it where the town in which the story takes place is located. Some other towns like London, Lincoln Chester are included in the map. So you can do a bit of geography along the way, also look up Rome on a globe and see how the Romans travelled to get to Britain, look up Celts/Romans on the BBC children's site, they have some nice activities. You could do a whole year's project around this book as you learn Latin without being overtly teachy about it and following up his interests with library books, online videos and history websites.

To give you an idea, chapter 1 starts with a comic strip introducing the mouse, the family cat and the members of the family. Underneath are 9 vocab items you need to understand it. He could decode this himself actually. My dd just grabbed the book , ran off with it and did the first chapter alone because she couldn't wait for me to get in the mood for it. Then it explains I am, you are, we are, you are (Plural)

The next page has a grammar explanation - the nouns you have encountere, explains the phrase "nota bene" (as in N.B.) and has a little time scale 55/54 BC Julius Caesar in Britain, 0 birth of Jesus Christ in Palestine, then part of the Roman empire etc, when Hadrian#s wall was built.

So you could go off and look up a book on Julius Caesar, you could tell him about Shakespeare (very briefly) and even read a couple of passages from Julius Caesar to him - the murder for example or the speeches after Caesar is murdered. You can google for the "Virtual Globe" and see Shakespeare's theater online.

You could talk about why we have a year 1 and count time the way we do BC, AD.

Next part of the chapter is "the birthday party". In Latin the text of a birthday invitation, underneath the new vocab. Once again I think your ds would manage this even without help (later in the book maybe not). Then it shows a photograph of an original fragment of a birthday invitation in Latin. Nice huh?

Another comic strip follows (arriving at the birthday party) more vocab. A box with the legend of Perseus and Medusa. Every child would be fascinated by Medusa and the cleverness of looking at her reflection in a shield rather than being turned to stone by looking straight at her. He could do a painting to illustrate the legend maybe.

A summary of the grammar closes the chapter.

That's the set-up, do you think your son might like that?

Yes I think he might well do! We'll certainly give it a try. The comic strip sounds great since it won't appear to technicy. Actually, we've been looking at the geography of the united kingdom, so It would tie in really great with the history angle of it. Great ideas, thank you so much! Now i'm raging again! Thanks also Jetgirl, will look at NH site. I think I'll see how far we go on our own before bringing in the heavies (tutor) although if he really gets into it I will make that investment. I'll keep you updated on how it goes. Now where's the nearest roman garrison.....

There is also a teacher's guide available, though at £40 it's quite pricy. it contains photocopiable masters (hence the cost) but also additional information to complement the stories as well as language notes.
If you finish the first book there is a second too!
Enjoy!

Thanks loads Jetgirl! Hello mrswoolf! How long have you been using the minimus for? What inspired you to give latin a try?

Heres another Latin thread - started by me!

You mentioned "science in a box" on this thread somewhere, would you mind taking a trip to my thread here to enlighten me. Thankyou!